Sitting on a Bench
by KirielAmbar
Summary: Random scenes from the GW universe - A variety of different pairings and types of relationships.
1. Sworn Brothers

Sally tore her gloves off and threw them in the incinerator, yanking the prep-room door open and storming out into the hallway. A couple of cadets flattened themselves against the wall as Preventers' head physician marched past, her heavy boots making a thumping sound that echoed down the quiet corridor.

By the time she got to the end of the hall Sally had lost momentum, and she wearily stepped out into the yard as the perimeter doors slid open.

Breathing deeply to let rain cleansed air replace alcohol and gunpowder and blood, Sally made her way to a corner of the compound she knew held a secluded bench. Unfortunately it was occupied by a young agent who appeared to be meditating, his shoes carefully lined up on the grass and his jacket tied around his waist.

"Get off my bench, Shen, now."

Wufei's only response was an irritated twitch in his left eye.

"That's not my name, woman."

Sally huffed, "And that's not mine."

She sat down heavily, making sure to shove Wufei out of his pose in the process. He mumbled something incoherent and quickly regained his balance, leaning down to slip his shoes back on before squaring his feet on the ground. He glanced to his right, where Sally was slumped over, her head in her hands.

"Why are you in such a good mood?" he asked, stretching his arms.

Glaring at him out of the corner of her eye, Sally let her hands fall over her knees.

"Stupid cadets getting themselves killed." She sighed and looked away.

Wufei nodded.

"And I assume you're being an emotional woman about it, and taking all responsibility. Was it even your mission, or were you just the doctor on duty?"

The way his partner refused to meet his eyes answered Wufei's question perfectly. He shook his head and leaned back against the bench, one arm resting behind Sally's bent shoulders. She needed time to process, even now after seeing so many perish on the cold beds of Preventers' medical ward. The guilt complex covered a strange sort of egotism, where the woman thought she could save everyone from their pain by saying it was her fault. The problem was no one believed her, and Wufei had tried to convince her countless times that families would rather hear that their children died in honorable battle than in a hospital, whether it suggested a cadet's incapacity or not.

After a long moment Sally sat up, resting lightly against Wufei's arm, appreciating the warmth in the rapidly chilling air.

"Thank you, Shen."

Wufei sighed exaggeratedly and Sally chuckled, bringing her hand up to grasp his.

"What did I tell you about thanking me?"

"I know, I know, jie yi xiong di."

"Close enough."

They sat in companionable silence for several minutes, watching the new brightest walk in and out of the building. A recommissioned officer building, abandoned in the wars, it served the fledgling organization well enough.

Glancing around with a distinct scowl on his face, Wufei mumbled, "You know, we'd have hardier cadets if you would stop recruiting everyone you meet."

Sally shrugged.

"Plus," he continued, gesturing rudely, "Why did you have to invite that OZ bastard? He'll probably try to head a coup!"

Laughing, Sally tapped her boots absently against the grass and winked.

"Don't worry, I'll keep a _close_ eye on him."

Wufei narrowed his gaze and looked back at her.

"I'm sure you will," he stood, pulling Sally up with him. "Now stop being inappropriate. We have a class to teach."

Saluting messily, Sally smiled. Wufei may have been right about not assigning blame where there wasn't any, but she knew he counted the dead closer than anyone else. He internalized it, she vocalized it, and together their steps were a comforting rhythm on the floors of HQ.


	2. OCD

Heero kept his eyes squeezed shut and let out a shaky breath as soft pressure left his lips. A happy sigh near his ear, the comforting feel of arms around his shoulders, and the shift of legs over his own rapidly convinced him of one thing.

"Its Zero."

"What's Zero?" Relena asked, pulling back slightly and peppering kisses over his nose.

"I'm in Wing, the Zero system has taken over, and I'm imagining all of this."

The girl on his lap giggled, "That's ridiculous, Heero, two people can't fit in a gundam."

Opening one eye to peer at her, Heero was caught between asking Relena if she actually thought Zero had never conjured her up before, and wondering if it was really that difficult to fit them both in the pilot's chair. He decided to cease that line of thought before the image of Relena wearing nothing but Space and blinking console lights became cemented too firmly in his mind.

Another kiss on the side of his neck forced Heero back into that strange haze that always accompanied Relena's close proximity. Over the last few weeks he had been increasingly perplexed as to how he could be so painfully aware of his body and yet have no idea what his hands were doing. In fact, when he surfaced next he found himself leaning over her, one arm wrapped around her waist, and his other hand attempting to push her shirt off of her shoulders.

He stopped, eyes wide as Relena smiled up at him.

"What's wrong, Heero?"

"Your shirt. Its not the kind with buttons."

Heero pulled her back into a sitting position, glancing slightly worriedly around the room.

"...and I don't know if I locked the front door."

Shaking her head with an amused smile, Relena grasped his hand as he began to rise from the couch. He attempted, with no real strength, to pull away.

"Relena, I have to check the doors. And the windows."

Relena wrapped her arms around his shoulders, pulling him close and smiling against his hair.

"You checked them twice when we were downstairs, remember, I asked you to?"

Thinking back over the last hour, Heero nodded. He had thought it was unusual for Relena to be so concerned with security, but he certainly wasn't going to dissuade her from finally thinking about her own safety.

"You've never done that before." he pointed out, relaxing back into her.

She nodded, "I knew you would worry about it, and I..." she paused, red tinting her cheeks, "...didn't want any distractions."

"...hn."

Heero added that to the list of things about Relena which surprised him, but about which he would certainly not complain. He appreciated her straightforwardness, in this especially. He had never had to guess how she felt about him, what she wanted from him, or when, even if he wasn't overly sure how to accomplish it. Sitting there, holding the girl of both his dreams and his technology-induced hallucinations, Heero just didn't want to mess it up too badly.

He kissed her forehead, "I've heard its awkward."

Relena laughed brightly, "Isn't it a relief? We don't get many opportunities to be awkward or silly."

Heero shook his head, unable to contain a tiny smile, as she pushed him back on the couch.


	3. Girls' Lunch Out

The bell over the door jingled as Noin carefully opened it, squeezing past children excitedly poking at a metal gumball machine. Glancing around at exits and corners, still not quite able to break herself of the habit, she spotted Relena and Sally sitting in a corner booth. Their laughter and animated hands brought a sigh of relief to Noin's lips, the long workdays having very nearly caught up to her.

She slid into the booth next to Relena, nudging her with a shoulder playfully.

"Lucrezia!" Relena smiled and nudged her back, "I'm glad you could make it."

Sally held out her hand for a fist bump, which Noin returned with a grin.

"I'm so glad to get off that ship! There is nothing more boring than being on a passenger shuttle for hours, crammed into the window because the King of the World fell asleep on me."

Shaking her head, Relena flipped open a menu and perused. "I will never understand how mobile suit pilots can stay awake for days on a mission, but the minute you need them awake at home, they're passed out on the couch with the television on and a half eaten sandwich in their lap."

Noin and Relena looked expectantly at Sally, who had been busy folding a straw paper as small as she could. "What?" She shrugged. "I don't know anything about the sleeping habits of pilots."

Taking the paper out of Sally's hand, Noin raised one eyebrow. "Oh, really?"

Sally rolled her eyes and leaned back against the red cushioned seat, "Yes, really. Wufei and I don't swing that way."

The table grew quiet for a moment as the other two women digested this new information. Finally Relena nodded.

"I hadn't thought that Wufei preferred men, but that might explain it."

Noin nodded in agreement, "Sally, I'm not surprised about you, but Wufei? Really?"

Hiding her laughter behind a menu, Sally waved her hand. "No, not like that, I just mean we're not Each Other Sexual." She looked around conspiratorially, "Speaking of Each Other Sexual, Lena, are you saying 01 is finally staying at your place?"

Twirling a piece of hair around her finger, Relena smiled, "Who can say, really?"

"Oh, come on, Relena." Noin patted the hand that was resting on the table. "Everyone knows, so tell us," she leaned in, "Just how good is the security at your house?"

Relena said nothing but fanned herself with her menu. Sally laughed, throwing her straw across the table. "You are a mess, girl."

They were still laughing when the waitress came over to take their orders.


	4. Why all the Religion

"I don't want to get married in a church."

Hilde, leaning comfortably in the swinging bench on Relena's porch, didn't look up from her tablet.

"Why is that, Duo?"

He lay on the wood floor of the porch, spread eagle, and every now and then would reach over to play with the laces on Hilde's shoes. They had been like that for about an hour, escaping the stuffiness of the house, more imagination than dust, while the others sat inside with sandwiches and glasses of lemonade.

Duo shrugged, even though he knew Hilde couldn't see.

"I'm tired of feeling like a..."

He didn't know what, really. A stereotype? An archetype? A destructive force with Religion as its opposite?

When Solo died, Duo had taken the kid's memory into himself in an effort to maintain that reckless survivalism that was so necessary in the hidden corners of L2. _I won't take shit from nobody, just like him. _But then, of course, he had been taken in by the Maxwell Church, and he pushed Solo to the back of his mind, crowding him with "Please" and "Thank you" and "Lights out now, children." He had even gotten to the point where he didn't hide bread in his baggy pants, and he took that as a sign he should let a family adopt him.

Solo wouldn't be so contained, and within months his foster family had sent him back to the church, to Father and Sister_Mother_, who smiled and hugged him and braided his hair better than anyone else.

Duo tried to be the hero, _and Solo backed him up on this one_, because he had been good for so long that he thought that might be his role, the reformed vagabond who relied on his street wiles and mended heart to save his family, friends, and home. He had returned with what turned out to be the worst literal deus ex machina ever, to find blood and ruin and a new last name, and there was no hero in sight, least of all him.

_Shinigami_ seemed to suit him better than _Deus_ because if he embodied death, then no one else had to, no one else could. He loved Hilde, he really did, and he wanted her to finally have whatever she wanted in life, but he had to keep the balance or else it wouldn't work out.

Duo shrugged again. "It just doesn't suit me."

Hilde reached down to grab the hand that had thoroughly tangled her shoelaces.

"As long as we're both standing there and your shirt is tucked in, I couldn't care less if we got married in the middle of a junk yard, baby."

Duo smiled, "That's my girl."


	5. Dust

Gundam Wing is, respectfully, not mine.

* * *

She stood in the dust that had fallen in the weeks since they'd left, parted at the front step with uncomplicated goodbye as they went their separate ways to conferences and missions. She had convinced him his accompaniment to the shuttleport was unnecessary, and he knew what she meant. He could watch from a distance to make sure she was safe, but these days she preferred to see him last at some place comfortable and their own. Likewise she preferred to greet him in the living room, having already taken the sheets off of the furniture, and casually resting in one of the deep wing-back chairs by the window. When he appeared she would delicately set her teacup on the sill and rise to wrap her arms around his neck and whisper, "Back already? I hadn't even unpacked!"Or something to that effect.

* * *

He inquired once, about her strange habits. "Does it make being apart easier? Since when do you fool yourself, Relena?" (She always wondered if people would be surprised at how direct he was about these sorts of things sometimes.)

She had laughed at that, and at his quirked brow. "I'm a politician and an idealist. If I don't spend at least thirty minutes a day fooling myself I feel quite useless!"

"I miss you too, you know."

"Oh Heero," she sighed lightly, "see now you've taken the mystery right out of it." She couldn't help but smile as he shrugged and fiddled with a strand of hair that had wound its way around an earring.

After a long quiet during which they almost dozed off at least once, Relena began idly kissing the tips of the fingers on his right hand, and he watched her as she weighed her words.

"It would be much more difficult, of course, if I thought of you as much as I want to. It wouldn't do to call you when I miss you because you're usually in the middle of a mission, and it would be even worse if you called me because then I would start associating phone calls with your safety."

"A bad habit," he agreed.

* * *

Back in the dust, however, suitcase dropped gracelessly on the floor, Relena was surprised to see that the furniture covers had already disappeared. The entire livingroom looked like it had been swept, as a matter of fact, and when she peered around the corner, Heero was there rearranging a photo frame on the mantle. He turned to her and smiled.

"I haven't gotten to the hallway yet." He held his arms out to her and Relena flew into them. "How did it go," he asked as she buried her face in his neck.

"I missed you the whole time," she exclaimed. "You should have seen me, I was positively distressed!"

"Oh? You don't sound disappointed."

"Actually," she murmured, happily, "it was fun. I gossiped about you to the others and daydreamed about you during meeting breaks, and I even wrote you a love letter."

"May I read it?

"Only if you write me one back."

After a moment, Heero sighed that laughing sigh he had developed recently. (Relena liked to think it was because of her.) "I've written you lots actually."

Surprised, Relena held him back at arms length. "You have not! Where are they?"

"Hm... maybe I left them in Wing..."

"I see."

"Or maybe I hid them under the bed."

"Oh!"

* * *

Does this make any sense? Lol, in my head sometimes, later on in their relationship, Heero is very straightforward in his affections and has no problem being a little love-sick over Relena when they're apart. He's always very quiet and dignified about it, of course! Relena takes her responsibilities regarding Heero and her job very seriously and she doesn't want either one to negatively affect the other, and so she sometimes gets into situations where she ignores her feelings for the mission, so to speak. It usually doesn't last very long though, and sooner or later she is again that girl standing on the cliff top calling out to Heero.


	6. Not Really a Surprise

Not mine...

Also, I am happy to announce that I am officially a beta reader! So if anyone likes my style and would like a beta... ^_^

* * *

Trowa liked watching Quatre dress.

For other than the obvious reasons, as well, of course.

He liked watching him pull out inlaid drawers made of fine woods and glass handles, rummage through them, and then lay several items on top. He liked how he would stand, very still for a moment, and then point dramatically at a pair of trousers or a vest, somehow knowing based on that one item exactly where the rest of his outfit was. Sometimes he had to call out, "Trowa! I think I left that shirt in the laundry room, would you mind..." and it would always be exactly as he said.

Quatre liked to collect ties and cuff links, mentioning more than once that they were one of the few ways a man could express himself while wearing a suit. That was completely ridiculous, from Trowa's point of view, because Quatre always looked unique and comfortable in his clothing whether he wore a tailored three-piece or shorts and a t-shirt. Nevertheless almost twenty pairs of links, all silly mementos of vacations or inside jokes, sat in rows in an old carved wooden box that had belonged to his grandfather. Trowa never tried to count the ties.

The long and short of it was, Quatre dressed deliberately and with a sense of purpose.

* * *

Relena had teased him once, when Quatre showed up to a party suddenly much taller and all sophisticated angles, that it was a good thing he was open about his relationship with Trowa (who was standing nearby, smile in his eyes) or else he would spend the majority of her birthday fending off offers, and she really did want him to have a good time.

As the two friends continued chatting Heero turned to Trowa, mouth upturned slightly.

"We're lucky we don't have to dress ourselves for these things."

"Damn straight."

* * *

"I'm going to burn all of my suits!" Quatre said, sighing and flopping back in a chair. He kicked his shoes off and Trowa watched as they bounced across the floor, finally landing in the corner.

"Oh?"

"Two weeks of straight meetings with dinosaurs who care more about how I spend my money on myself than they do about how I spend it on people who need it, or the company for that matter."

"I like you in suits."

Quatre turned to his companion, eyes narrowed. "You like me out of suits as well."

Trowa stared back. "Yes, but the process is important."

After a few moments Quatre sighed dramatically and threw his arms up, amusement clearly showing on his face.

"Oh alright, the suits can stay. You don't have to try so hard to convince me."

* * *

_I'm sorry that this is a bunch of random scenes. Q_Q Quatre and Trowa are the best, but its difficult for me to write them. You have to start somewhere though, right?_


End file.
